Evening Brief: OECD raises concern about SNC-Lavalin accusations

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The Lead

A working group for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says its “concerned” about the allegations that members of the Prime Minister’s Office attempted to pressure former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to broker a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin.

The international organization’s bribery group made the remarks in a statement distributed Monday, as reported by the Canadian Press. SNC-Lavalin stands accused of bribing Libyan officials during the Gaddafi administration to secure contracts.

Canada is one of 44 signatories to the legally binding Anti-Bribery Convention. Its goal is to ensure signatories punish those under its jurisdiction that commit bribery in other countries. The working group, tasked with monitoring the implementation and enforcement of the convention, wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office about the issue and says Canada has promised to update them at its June meeting.

The statement says Canada’s commitment under the convention is to “prosecutorial independence in foreign bribery cases,” and that political factors such as national economic interests and the identities of the company or individuals involved should have no influence on the prosecution.

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada “firmly supports” the OECD and will continue to “work with and update the working group on the robust and independent domestic processes currently underway in Canada.”

In Canada

Jagmeet Singh has named Montreal MP Alexandre Boulerice as the NDP’s new deputy leader as the party looks to raise its profile in seat-rich Quebec, reports the Canadian Press. Singh, who made the announcement Monday in Montreal, said his nomination of Boulerice signals that he wants to “do things differently in Quebec.” He also promised to release a series of Quebec-specific announcements in the coming months.

Boulerice, a former union adviser who was first elected in 2011, will be tasked with recruiting candidates in Quebec and helping the party with voters in the province. Most polls are showing the NDP lagging in fourth place in the province, fighting for positioning with the Bloc Québécois. It’s a far cry from 2011 when the party took 59 seats in Quebec in that year’s general election.

“We are not exactly where we want to be in Quebec at this time,” Boulerice said at the announcement.

Back to SNC-Lavalin, the CBC is reporting that an internal briefing book for Justice Minister David Lametti flagged remediation agreements (alternatively known as a deferred prosecution agreement) as a “hot issue.” The briefing book is what the minister received upon his appointment to the job in January and were made available under the Access to Information law.

Department of Justice officials in the briefing book describe remediation agreements as “part of a multi-faceted approach to addressing corporate wrongdoing,” though described them as a matter of “independent prosecutorial discretion.”

“This new approach demonstrates the government of Canada’s commitment to addressing corporate crime, which can have a serious impact on innocent third parties such as victims, employees, suppliers, pensioners and investors,” the briefing book reads.

The Ford government’s second choice for OPP commissioner says he doesn’t know the Ford family and has never met the premier. The government announced Thomas Carrique as its appointment for the province’s top policing job on Monday morning. Carrique, one of three deputy chiefs with York Regional Police, is a 29-year veteran of the force.

He fills the hole left by Ron Taverner who was controversially appointed to the position of OPP commissioner in November, but who bowed out on Wednesday. Taverner is a personal friend of Premier Doug Ford, and Ford said he didn’t recuse himself from cabinet when the decision was made to appoint Taverner. Carrique made it clear at a Monday press conference that he has no connection to the premier.

“I have no relationship whatsoever with the premier or the Ford family,” Carrique said, adding: “I have not met the premier before.” Marieke Walsh has the latest.

Veteran NDP MP Charlie Angus tells iPolitics’ Chloe Girvan that he sees his role in Ottawa as occasionally being the person who will have to “burn bridges.”

An unsuccessful Tory candidate in the 2015 election has been charged with stealing over $5,000 in campaign funds, reports the Canadian Press. The federal Public Prosecution Service announced Monday that it has charged former candidate Charles Poulin and Sonia Fortin, his campaign’s official agent, with theft. She also faces a second charge from the federal Elections Commissioner of failing to submit a campaign return and other documents within four months of polling day.

A joint release from the two groups says the money was taken from the riding association in Quebec’s Brome-Missisquoi and benefitted a “creditor of the campaign.” According to the Criminal Code, the maximum prison term for the indictable offence is 10 years in prison. Poulin finished fourth in the riding in 2015.

Keeping with elections, iPolitics broke down the numbers for all byelections held over the previous Parliament and the current one to see whether the results from 2011-2015 presaged a Liberal majority, or at the very least, the sliding popularity of the Conservatives, and what the results from byelections held during the first Trudeau term could mean for October. Marco Vigliotti has the details.

Public Works security officials abruptly withdrew on Monday afternoon a directive that would have required journalists and everyone else entering the National Press Building in Ottawa to show House of Commons or department security passes before getting in.

The requirement, first circulated by an internal Commons notice the day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Thursday news conference over the SNC-Lavalin affair, had taken effect on Monday morning. Tim Naumetz has more.

iPolitics’ Kevin Dougherty reports on the latest blow to the Parti Québécois, which has seen rising star Catherine Fournier — who at 26 was the youngest elected member of the Quebec National Assembly — announce she is leaving the party to sit as an “independent sovereigntist.”

The United Nations says North Korea is evading sanctions through new means that has allowed the isolated regime to import oil, sell coal and hack into bank accounts outside its borders, reports NBC News. The head of the UN panel of experts, Hugh Griffiths, told the outlet that he had never seen such elaborate smuggling methods in his 15 years of tracking maritime trafficking, which include deceiving global banks, insurers and commodity traders.

The sanctions are put in place to stop North Korea from financing its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

As CNN reports, some international airliners and aviation authorities are grounding Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft after one the planes crashed in Ethiopia Sunday, killing all 157 people on board. It comes only six months after another a new Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight went down over the Java Sea last October, killing 189 people.

Both crashes are under investigation and there is no evidence of a link between the two, though the similarities in the incidents have prompted the cautious reaction from some aviation authorities and airlines.